Flyleaf Book Club provides a unified space to discuss Queer books

Every second Friday of the month, the new queer book club, Genre Nonconforming, comes together in the warmly lit event room of Flyleaf Books to discuss the month's chosen book. 

On Friday, the group gathered to discuss "You Exist Too Much," a novel by the Palestinian-American author Zaina Arafat. 

“The first goal, first and foremost, is just to be a fun book club,” book club facilitator Charlie Monroe said. 

The book club covers many different genres, hence the name, in order to give its members a mix of light, fun reads such as murder mysteries, and heavier stories covering relevant themes in the community. 

“The idea is that we want books that are written by queer authors, inhabiting queer stories, but that aren’t the kind of heavy, trauma-focused stories that are so prominent in queer spaces,” Monroe said. 

Flyleaf had already hosted multiple book clubs before Genre Nonconforming was tossed around as an idea, back in the spring of 2024.

Events Coordinator Emma Holland said that the book clubs offer spaces for people to engage with their hobbies and meet people with similar interests.

“It creates a bridge of common ground,” Holland said.

Monroe said that the club blossomed from a desire to feel more present in the local queer community. Flyleaf strongly advertises that they are a safe space for queer readers. Genre Nonconforming only reinforces that.

“[Genre Nonconforming] felt like a natural extension of wanting to be a part of the community in this other way,” Monroe said.

She said her process of choosing the book of the month includes googling small-press queer books and searching through TikTok to find lesser known queer authors before an order is put in.

A 15% discount is offered to those who buy the book of the month through Flyleaf.

Bookseller and Online Order Facilitator Katarina Baltisberger said that the book clubs tend to bring in new faces. She said that she frequently sees the names of new book club attendees come in to the computer system, whether it be for an online book club order, or an addition to the mailing list. 

“We’ve had a core group of the same people come to all of [the meetings], and then every meeting we’ve had new people show up,” Monroe said.

Genre Nonconforming meetings follow a similar structure each month.

Monroe said that she usually starts with an icebreaker question that is related to the themes of the book in conversation. When the book club read a murder mystery, for example, the question of the day was: "What is a current mystery that you're trying to solve in your life?"

After the icebreaker, Monroe said the conversations tend to flow organically. 

“I do bring in prompt questions if people need them, but usually people are very opinionated,” Monroe said.

There is no entry cost and there are no qualifications needed to join Genre Nonconforming. 

“Come to book clubs and have fun with them,” Holland said. “The energy that you put into not just book clubs, but community spaces and hobbies and all that good stuff is what you get out of it.”